Kibbles & Bytes Blog

It was only a few years ago that flash keys (sometimes called thumb drives or jump drives) were considered cutting edge technology. They were featured as futuristic gizmos in spy movies and espionage thrillers. Various companies competed to make them smaller and smaller. Small Dog used to offer 512MB and 1GB flash drives that were mere slivers of metal, and barely protruded from their host USB port. They were popular, though expensive and easily lost.

These days standard flash keys are mostly pretty boring. They tend to vary little in appearance or performance. They’re basically the modern version of a floppy disk, though more expensive with much higher capacity.

I recently needed a 4GB flash key to format as a bootable Linux disk. While Small Dog offers several different flash drives, the LaCie itsaKey caught my eye. It’s available in 4GB and 8GB capacities, and basically looks like a futuristic car key (and even incorporates a sturdy hole to go on a keychain). However, the design is not simple whimsy — the drive is made out of tough metal, not plastic. Also, the fact that the drive is the size of a car key is very appealing to me. It’s not a microscopic device that will get lost in my computer bag.

So far, I’ve been very happy with the itsaKey. It has a fast USB 2.0 connection, and is rated to read data up to 30 MB/s, and write data up to 10MB/s. The Itsakey is hot-pluggable and compatible with Mac and PC. It was fast enough to serve as a bootable Linux disk, and now I use it for transferring and transporting data. With its metal case, it should last a very long time.

I mean, a flash key is a flash key–don’t get me wrong. While the itsaKey a usable, functional tool, it also happens to have a fun appearance. It would make an excellent gift.

See the 4GB itsaKey “here.”:http://burlington.smalldog.com/product/73397
See the 8GB itsaKey “here.”:http://burlington.smalldog.com/product/73398

My husband Chris recently ditched Windows for good on his MacBook, on which he had previously been running Windows via Boot Camp as his primary OS. Once he decided to make the leap for good, he just backed up his important files, deleted the Windows partition and started using OS X.

All worked great until the time came to sync his iPhone. Since he was still on the same computer, he didn’t think anything of plugging it in. However, he had been in the Windows world, and the two operating systems–though on the same physical computer–treat syncing devices separately. When he plugged his iPhone in, iTunes naturally treated it like a new device.

Without thinking, he clicked through the windows prompting him to set up his new device and all info was lost. Around the same time, I had been having issues with my own iPhone and needed to troubleshoot to getting it working correctly again. What a great time to write about safely backing up and restoring an iPhone!

So, if you’re having issues with your iPhone or iPod touch or you’d like to utilize the restore feature before syncing to a new iTunes library, here are some things to keep in mind (if you need step-by-step instructions for the restore process, see the bottom of the article for links):

* *iTunes has a built-in feature that backs up your data each time you sync, update or restore your device.*

However, this does NOT include your photos, videos or audio. If you have the information still on your computer that you want to sync, it will do so; however if you’re setting up your device for the first time and your information is not already on the computer, you want a more fully-featured backup program such as “iPhone/iPod touch Backup Extractor.”:http://supercrazyawesome.com __(Leopard only)__

* *If you want to restore your device from a backup, either right click the iPhone or iPod touch icon in the lefthand navigation bar or click Restore in the Summary tab in iTunes.*

If your data is completely up-to-date the way you want it, and you need to restore it because it’s acting funny, I’d recommend syncing first, so you have a recent backup.

Note: If you click Restore in the Summary tab and proceed from there, it gives you a little more information about the backups than if you right click on the device icon (e.g. my old iPod touch and iPhone are named the same thing–only the former example gives you your phone number to indicate that it’s a phone, rather than an iPod!)

Depending on the size of the backup, it could (and probably will) take several minutes.

* *Once your data is restored, all of your information should be back on your device, but the apps will be out of order.*

If you’re like me and have several pages of apps that you’ve painstakingly organized to perfection (yep, I said it), I recommend taking a screenshot of each page beforehand to help you sort them out afterward! (iPhone only: To take a screenshot, press the Home button and the button on the top simultaneously. It will take a screenshot that is then stored in your pictures.)

More resources:
“Backing Up/Restoring your iPhone/iPod touch software”:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1414
“iPhone and iPod touch: About backups”:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1766
“iPhone Troubleshooting Assistant”:http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/troubleshooting/phone/
“iPod touch Troubleshooting Assistant”:http://www.apple.com/support/ipodtouch/troubleshooting/ipodtouch/

iTunes makes it fairly straightforward to maintain a large library of music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, album art, and other media. It’s easy to keep your iTunes library on an external hard drive (“click here to read how to do this”:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449). It’s also easy to create multiple, seperate iTunes libraries by holding down the *Option* key while launching iTunes (“click here to read more about how to do this”:http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iTunesMac/8.0/en/15499.html).

It’s less obvious how to split an existing iTunes library, so that some files are stored on one hard drive, while other files are stored on a second hard drive.

By default, when you add a file to iTunes, iTunes copies that file into your iTunes library. This is part of what makes iTunes so easy to use and manage. However, you can prevent iTunes from copying files into its library in by de-selecting *Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library* in iTunes Preferences. Unfortunately, when I did that in the past, my iTunes media collection quickly became disorganized.

I work around this with a simple keyboard shortcut: I *simply hold down the Option key while dragging files into iTunes, making iTunes link to the original file without actually copying it into my iTunes library.*

This allows me to store my music, iPhone backups, and podcasts on my MacBook Pro’s hard drive, while I keep all movies and TV shows on an external hard drive. Movies and TV shows take up a lot of megabytes; this helps save space on my MacBook Pro’s hard drive. With the Option-key shortcut described above, iTunes thinks I only have one library while I actually have two.

This does involve a couple of extra steps for movies and TV shows I automatically download from the iTunes store, since I have to move that media to the external drive, and then move it back into iTunes. To do this:

1. In iTunes, find the real location of the media file you want to move by right clicking (or control-clicking) on it and choosing “Show in Finder.”

2. Move this file to your external drive, preferably in a well-named folder such as “iTunes Movies”.

3. After the file has copied over, delete the original file in iTunes.

4. Now drag the file from the external drive into iTunes while holding down the Option key.

You should confirm the file is copied to the external by repeating step one and choosing “Show in Finder”.

From now on, as long as the external drive is connected, you’ll be able to play back the file. You can even sync it to your iPhone or iPod, or stream to Apple TV!

Dear Friends,

Artie Hendrickson is our most senior employee. He has held just about every position in the company and is currently our senior purchasing manager. We established a tradition when we first hired him where we would hold his annual review on a new (to us) golf course every spring near his anniversary date. We always say that he needs to play well because his golfing skill could have a serious impact on his review and salary. There is a big bonus for a hole-in-one, a moderate increase if his drive hits the fairway and a subtraction from his bonus if he three-putts. We were out doing his review yesterday, and I’ll report the results on Twitter or Facebook!

I seldom buy extended warranties but I want to make the case to you that Apple’s AppleCare is an exception to that rule and an outstanding value. The computer business is a competitive marketplace and it would certainly be nice if manufacturers standardized on longer warranties. However, in the name of cost competitiveness, the standard is a one-year warranty. Macs and iPods are the most reliable computer products manufactured, but they also only have a one-year warranty. Adding AppleCare gives you an extra two years and thus puts your coverage in sync with the reliability of the hardware.

The bonus of AppleCare for Macs is that it not only extends the one-year hardware warranty to three years, but it also extends Apple’s excellent technical support from an included 90 days to a full three years (after the 90 days you are asked to provide a credit card for help). This is an outstanding value. Almost anything that might fail on your computer in the first three years will cost you more than the cost of AppleCare! Plus, how do you put a price on the convenience of calling Apple directly to receive technical support when you are in the middle of a project and are stuck?

AppleCare is clearly not just an extended warranty; it provides real tools to keep you productive and makes the first three years of your Mac ownership stress-free so you can just use the awesome tool of the Macintosh.